KIRK CAME OUT as the shuttlecraft’s lock opened, but halted in front of the mobile’s open lock. The prospect of again entering the alien black and green interior suddenly repelled him; he recalled how disoriented he had been during his first trip inside. He closed his eyes for a moment.
“Jim,” McCoy’s voice said from the communicator inside Kirk’s protective suit, “what is it?”
“Nothing.” The eerie feeling faded. Kirk moved through the lock into the black corridor, with McCoy behind him.
“This open lock,” McCoy said. “Still don’t like it. Like an engraved invitation—feels as if they’re just waiting for us.”
“I expect they are,” Kirk replied. “Maybe Spock has something to do with it.” Maybe Spock was the bait. He pushed that thought aside, reached for his tricorder, and connected it to his suit’s belt input.
He led the way through the jagged black corridor, pausing every few moments to check his tricorder readings. “He’s here,” he said, turning toward McCoy. “He’s somewhere in this section of the mobile.”
The physician’s head bent forward as he peered at his own tricorder display inside his helmet. “Yes, but those life-sign readings look weaker than they should. Normal, but too weak.”
Kirk moved forward; the readings were getting stronger. His first officer was somewhere ahead, but McCoy was right; Spock’s life-sign readings still seemed low for a Vulcan, as if he were sedated or unconscious. “What do you make of those readings, Bones?”
“I don’t like them. He’s unconscious, possibly comatose,”
“Hurry.” Kirk picked up his pace, making one turn to his left, then another. Spock’s tricorder life-sign readings grew fainter; he was going in the wrong direction. He retraced his steps, forcing himself to slow down, so as not to get lost. Occasionally he paused to close his eyes and shake off the feelings of disorientation.
“How do you feel?” he asked McCoy.
“Kinda dizzy—and I still have that odd feeling of dread coming from outside myself.”
“Permission granted to return to the shuttlecraft,” Kirk said, knowing that McCoy would stick with him.
“Not on your life.”
Kirk made another turn, then stopped. Spock’s protective suit—it had to be his suit—lay on the floor in front of him. He hurried toward it, swallowing his dismay, almost expecting to find the Vulcan still inside the suit.
He knelt and quickly examined the suit and helmet. Spock’s backpack, with his portable subspace communicator, sat less than one meter away, against the wall.
“No damage,” Kirk said. “Spock took it off and left it here.”
“That, or someone forced him to take it off,” McCoy murmured as Kirk stood up and continued forward.
The passageway grew more constricted. Kirk’s tricorder readings indicated that he was getting closer to Spock, but the Vulcan’s life-sign readings were still too low. The corridor would soon be too narrow for him to pass through. He went on until his broad, suited shoulders were caught between the walls, forcing him to stop.
“What now?” McCoy’s voice said in his ear.
“Spock came through here. The tricorder readings tell me that he’s up ahead.”
“Then he took off his suit to get through that narrow space.”
Kirk took a couple of steps backward, then turned to face McCoy. “We’ll do the same.”
McCoy was scanning with his tricorder. “The air’s breathable.”
“It was breathable when my team and I first came inside.”
“But Spock was also thinner than you or me.” Kirk heard the word was as a small explosion in his brain, and knew that Bones had instantly regretted saying it, but made no comment. “We might not be able to squeeze through that passage,” McCoy said more softly.
Kirk removed his helmet, then began to take off his suit. McCoy had already removed his own helmet.
“You’re always telling me that I could stand to lose a little weight,” Kirk went on. “I should have listened to you.”
“And I should have followed my own advice.”
The two men removed their portable equipment, placed their suits near one wall, then turned toward the narrow passageway. Kirk hesitated, fearing suddenly that they might find Spock’s body just beyond the constriction, collapsed like his empty suit.
He stepped forward without looking back at McCoy, almost afraid to see the doctor’s expression—one of resignation, perhaps. At the narrowing he turned sideways, trying to squeeze through the tight, black passageway. The surface of the walls was as polished as obsidian, but almost seemed wet, pressing in on him as if it might suddenly become soft and give way.
“Can you make it, Jim?” McCoy asked.
“I’m trying.” He managed to slip forward and was suddenly free. The corridor bent to the right. He turned to wait for McCoy.
The medical officer struggled through the narrow passage, then stumbled forward. Kirk reached out to steady him. “Easy, Bones.”
“Thanks.” McCoy squinted as he gazed down the corridor. “Is it my imagination, or does the light seem a little different up ahead?”
“It’s not your imagination. It is a slightly different shade.” Kirk stared at the strange glow up the corridor, noting the tinge of blue in the green.
They hurried forward and came to an open, oval entrance. Kirk peered inside and up toward what would be the ceiling; the chamber was shaped like a dome.
“Jim,” McCoy said. Kirk lowered his eyes. “Do you see that?”
Near the center of the large chamber, in front of a panel shaped like a heptagon that rose from the black floor, stood a tall, shadowy figure, right arm raised, the palm of the right hand flat against the panel.
Kirk hurried across the floor. McCoy caught up with him as he reached Spock’s side. Spock’s pale skin had a more vivid green tinge to it, but that had to be the light; McCoy’s face also had taken on a greenish hue. The Vulcan did not move; Kirk could not tell if he was breathing.
The Vulcan was motionless, as if frozen in place. Tiny bits of light flickered across the panel’s surface.
McCoy quickly scanned Spock with his medical tricorder. “He’s breathing,” the medical officer said, “but respiration rate’s much lower than normal.”
“But what’s wrong with him?”
“I’d almost think that he was in a trance or drugged state of some kind, except…” McCoy studied his tricorder. “His readings don’t indicate any foreign substances or anything that looks like a drug. And his brain wave readings are similar to those of someone in deep concentration.” He leaned closer to the inert Vulcan. Spock’s eyes were open, unblinking, as expressionless as a blind man’s. “He’s alive, and apparently conscious, but he seems—almost paralyzed, but without the usual bodily distress of paralysis.”
Kirk reached out and touched Spock’s face, then his outstretched arm, but got no reaction. He gripped his friend’s arm more tightly; the muscles were rigid. “Spock,” he said softly, “can you hear me? What’s happened to you?”
* * *
A menacing shadow, shaped like a stooping biped, covered most of the sky.
The shadow thundered, “Spock, can you hear me? What’s happened to you?”
A friend, Spock told the aliens standing near him. This one, and the one who entered with him—they are my comrades. Spock hoped that his captors would believe him.
Captors?
Yes, Spock replied, for are you not holding me here?
Yes, we are, the aliens admitted, but only … until we are certain that you will do us no harm. Until we know that we are safe from you.
We will do you no harm, Spock insisted, gazing up at the shadow in the sky.
That we must determine for ourselves, the aliens whispered.
* * *
Spock’s hand, Kirk noticed, was pressed carefully, almost precisely, against the panel. His elbow was slightly bent, his fingers spread; he had not put his hand against the surface in haste or from being startled, and there were no signs of force being used against him. He had put his palm against the alien wall deliberately.
“We’ve got to get him out of here,” McCoy said.
“How?” Kirk touched Spock’s arm again. “He’s completely rigid. Even if we could move him, I don’t think we could get him through that narrow passage.” He clutched Spock’s shoulders and pulled hard, but it was like trying to move a stone statue. Spock would have to have his right arm at his side to go through the narrows.
McCoy said, “He hasn’t had a stroke, he’s not in shock, there’s no sign of brain injury or trauma, no sign of drugs, no sign of harm—but he doesn’t seem to know we’re here.”
Kirk tried to think. “Bones, we don’t know what’s happened here.”
“More like what is happening here,” McCoy said.
“Exactly,” Kirk said, feeling very inexact.
“He’s being held by something,” McCoy said, “and either he can’t break free, or he doesn’t want to.”
Kirk suddenly realized that there was only one way to learn what it was that held Spock here. He had to do what Spock had obviously done to get himself into this state. He opened his right hand and stretched it toward the panel.
McCoy grabbed his wrist. “What are you doing, Jim? Are you insane?”
“Spock’s alive. And we can’t leave him here like this. I won’t leave him.”
McCoy released him and stepped back. “Of course we won’t. I just hope that when we get him back, they haven’t messed with his mind too much, that he’ll be the same Spock.” He paused. “Now there’s a hell of a thing for me to admit.” McCoy shook his head. “Don’t take the chance, Jim. We’ll get him out of here some other way.”
“Sorry, Bones,” Kirk said—and pressed his palm next to Spock’s against the alien surface.
* * *
“Jim, no!” McCoy lunged toward his captain, but he was too late. Kirk’s arm touched the panel and his body became rigid.
McCoy pulled at Kirk’s arm, but was unable to move it. He grabbed Kirk by his broad shoulders and felt unyielding flesh.
Rigor mortis, he thought, and imagined the flesh rotting away from both of his friends, leaving only skeletons.
“Dammit, no,” he muttered, stumbling back; his worst fears had proven correct. The aliens of the mobile had lured them inside to trap them. The peculiar feeling of dread nearly overcame him; he struggled to pull himself together.
He scanned Kirk with his tricorder, then did another scan of Spock. Low respiratory rate, slow and steady heartbeat, no sign of physical damage—indeed, all the symptoms of a deep, trancelike state. Kirk’s eyes now held the same blind look as Spock’s. McCoy peered into the two faces more closely. No, he concluded again, those eyes weren’t completely blind and empty; there was a flickering of consciousness in them. He could almost imagine that Spock was deep in thought, and that Kirk was gazing at something wondrous just beyond the panel. They were together—somewhere.
He jostled Kirk’s arm; there was no reaction. McCoy folded his arms and tried to guess at what was going on here. There seemed to be no overt threat, until one touched the panel. If the alien artifact did not affect the body, it clearly had an effect on the mind. There was a purpose behind all this, of that he was sure—but what?
McCoy reached for his communicator. Time to contact Sulu and Scott and tell them what had happened so far; maybe they would have some advice for him.
“McCoy to Enterprise.” His communicator was silent, despite being patched into the subspace transmitter on his suit pack.
“McCoy to Enterprise.”
Sulu might want to come in with another shuttlecraft and more personnel; he would warn the helmsman against that, tell him that the mobile had become a trap.
“Do you read me? McCoy to Enterprise.”
The only sound from his communicator was like the hiss of a distant wind.
Spock had been able to contact the ship earlier, from inside this sun-core station, but now even the subspace link was cut off. Uhura had said that the channel was still wide open. When Spock had put his hand up against this panel, that must have been what had cut him off, why he had not responded to Uhura.
But this was different. Whatever controlled the mobile apparently did not want McCoy to communicate with the Enterprise, so now even the subspace link was blocked.
He tried to think of what to do now. Suddenly he had the urge to step up and place his own palm next to those of his two friends, to join them in their submission to whatever beckoned from beyond….
But he resisted.
It seemed too much like death.
* * *
Kirk blinked—
—and saw Spock standing next to him.
“Welcome, Captain,” Spock said. The Vulcan was clothed in his uniform, but his feet were bare and his top was a bit too short; he wore his belt, but his phaser and communicator were gone. Kirk looked down and saw that he was also in his uniform, but without his standard equipment. Under his bare feet, he saw red grass; the ground was warm against his soles.
He lifted his head and looked around at the alien landscape of red, grassy plains, a forest of black trees, orange cylinders surrounded by walls that crowned a hill above the strange forest, and a green river flowing down a red hillside. Then he saw the aliens standing nearby; there were six of them, all bipeds, hairless and with large eyes.
“The masters of this mobile,” Spock said, “and we are visitors inside their culture.” Kirk noted the respectful tones in Spock’s voice.
“Why are we here?” Kirk asked.
“Our curiosity has made us intruders,” Spock replied. “That’s how they see us. You and I must try to convince them that we are not a threat to their way of life.”
“Why would we ever wish to become a threat?” Kirk asked.
“They fear that we could become a threat despite our best intentions, Captain. They fear immigrants, so to speak, and I am sure that there are others in the Federation who would intrude out of curiosity.”
Kirk nodded. “As we already have.” The fear the aliens felt was not unjustified; other cultures had suffered damage and destruction at the hands of the well-intentioned. “Did you explain that we were trying to save them? Did you tell them that we thought their mobile might be a threat to the people of Tyrtaeus II?”
“Yes, I did, but I think that further explanation will be necessary.”
Kirk had a feeling that it was going to take a lot more to free them than his promises of Federation respect.
He suddenly had the overpowering urge to put his right arm down, even though he could see that it was clearly at his side—here but not elsewhere.
Spock glanced at him. “I feel the same discomfort, Captain. I believe it comes from an imperfect match between our nervous systems and this virtual matrix. It was not made for us.”
Kirk gazed at the alien delegation. They stared back at him, unmoving, and he could read no recognizable expression in their dark eyes. “What else can we do to reassure them that we mean them no harm.”
“We did attack their mobile with our weapons.”
“Only to protect the people of Tyrtaeus II. Only because we were afraid that the field around their mobile would affect this sun if they entered it. They must realize that.”
“They do, Captain.”
“If they can assure us without a doubt that their presence inside this sun will cause no harm to Tyrtaeus II, we will leave and trouble them no more.”
“They have confirmed that their presence will not affect the star.”
“Do you believe them?”
“It’s difficult to say that I believe them. More to the point, I conclude that they have no motive to lie or do any harm.”
“No motive that we understand,” Kirk said.
Spock shook his head. “The logic of Occam’s Razor, Captain. We must not proliferate assumptions beyond the facts before us. Events to this point indicate that the mobile failed to respond to us because it did not wish us to interfere with its purpose—namely to enter this sun-core station and dock here. It also failed to respond because it did not wish any of us to disturb the virtual world that the inhabitants have created for themselves. That seems more than adequate to explain all that has happened.”
“So.” Kirk faced the group of aliens and opened his arms. “Let’s talk.”
“What shall we say, Captain?” Spock asked. “To merely repeat our assurances will not be enough.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Kirk asked.
“A good question, Captain.”
* * *
McCoy cursed under his breath. He could not drag Kirk and Spock to the shuttlecraft without breaking off their arms, and he would not leave them here. He had a feeling that he would not be allowed to leave the mobile or the sun-core station anyway, even if he could have brought himself to abandon his comrades.
He grasped his communicator and flipped it open.
“McCoy to Enterprise,” he murmured, not expecting to hear a voice from the ship, but not knowing what else to do. The sound like a distant wind answered him again; at last he slipped the communicator back onto his belt.
He would wait here, monitoring Kirk and Spock with his medical tricorder, hoping against hope that something unexpected would happen to free them. But then, suddenly, against all reason, he felt that joining the two in their trance was exactly what he should do. As that thought came to him, the strange feeling of dread faded a little.
He cursed again, slapped his palm hard against the panel, and held it there.
Between one blink of his eyes and the next, he was standing on a grassy red plain beside Kirk and Spock.
“Where in blazes are we?” McCoy asked, relieved to see his friends apparently alive and well, but startled and uneasy to find himself in the midst of a bizarre landscape, without his tricorder, barefooted and dressed in a badly fitted uniform. He turned his head slightly and saw six bipeds, humanoid but clearly not human.
As Spock updated him, McCoy surveyed the strange landscape. He was unnerved by the aliens who seemed so like—and yet so unlike—human beings, and by the rolling red plain of hills and forest of black trees that seemed somehow to want to be as much a part of him as outside.
“Now how the heck are we supposed to ‘uncontact’ these people?” McCoy said testily as Spock finished his explanation. “We won’t be able to keep from reporting this. Once the existence of this mobile and this station are known, curiosity will eventually win out.”
“Precisely,” Spock said. “They’re well aware that they cannot count on the promises of three lone individuals, or even the promises of everyone on board the Enterprise. They know that a massive culture stands behind us—one that is likely to be most curious about their technology.”
You are different, a voice said.
McCoy heard the voice inside himself and knew that the aliens had spoken.
“Different?” McCoy asked, both speaking the words and thinking them.
You are also unlike this one, the one called Spock. Your thoughts and his have a different quality. You are similar to the one called Captain Kirk, but we sense some differences between you two as well.
“Spock is a Vulcan,” McCoy said, “who comes from another world than mine. He has human ancestry as well, but in upbringing and culture, he’s Vulcan.”
Spock turned toward him and lifted a brow slightly.
“Captain Kirk and I,” McCoy went on, “are human beings from a planet called Earth. We share a culture, with minor variations, but I suppose you could say that we have different personalities. Anyway, humans of the same species often disagree, if that helps you any.”
Yet all of you are what you call friends, the aliens murmured.
McCoy turned toward his companions. “Yes,” he admitted, “we are all friends. It’s why I entered this virtual reality of yours—to find my friends. It wasn’t because of curiosity about you, or an attempt to learn any of your secrets—it was to find my friends and bring them back safely to our ship.”
“And I came here to find Spock,” Kirk said.
We sense that the motives of Spock are other than yours, the aliens whispered, that his curiosity brought him to us.
“That is true,” Spock said, “and I know how much you fear the curiosity of others.”
The alien bipeds did not respond.
“But I have satisfied some of my curiosity,” Spock added.
The aliens remained silent. Spock glanced at Kirk, then toward McCoy, and McCoy guessed from the look in the Vulcan’s eyes that he had come to some sort of decision.
“I spoke to you earlier about a planet called Talos IV,” Spock said, “the world whose inhabitants create imaginary realms with their thoughts. The Federation has forbidden any Starfleet vessel to go there. Any Federation citizen who journeys to Talos IV risks the death penalty, a punishment almost never imposed for other offenses. It is my belief that the Federation can be convinced to take similar steps to protect you. Indeed, I am willing to plead your case if you will allow me and my comrades to leave.”
Your reasoning is flawed, the alien delegation responded. The restrictions of your Federation did not prevent you from returning to that forbidden world of Talos IV on an errand of mercy. And we are not like those you call Talosians. Their illusions were a trap. Ours are not.
“I shall offer another argument, then,” Spock said, “one that should convince you that letting us go is your only rational choice. We are officers on one of the most important of our Starfleet vessels. The Federation and Starfleet went to some trouble and expense to train us, and we have, if I may say so, won a few honors and some renown for our service. If you let us go, we can be your advocates and plead your case. If you keep us here, you will only guarantee that others will continue to come after us, and will not leave you alone until they find out what happened to us.”
The aliens were silent. Moments passed, growing longer until McCoy began to worry that the delegation might never communicate with them again.
Kirk said at last, “I don’t think they liked your words about pleading their case. Sounds like it’s still to be decided.”
“Yes, Captain—but it is also the case that, if they do not let us go, they increase the likelihood of what they seem to fear most, namely intrusion and contact with outsiders.”
“Well, I now have a strong feeling,” Kirk said, “that they’ve already found out all that they need to know about us to ensure their privacy. Their problem will be settled by means other than talk.”
The aliens continued to stare past the three, as if completely uninterested in anything they now had to say.
“That is an interesting leap, Captain,” Spock said. “And what exactly do you mean?”
“I think Jim means that they have our number,” McCoy replied.
Spock lifted both brows. “Number?”
“That they’ve figured out what we’re capable of doing, what kinds of motivations we have, and what they have to do in order to protect themselves from us.”
You may go.
McCoy was startled. He glanced at Kirk and Spock, and saw that they had also heard the words.
You may go, the aliens repeated, and McCoy felt a great tiredness and heaviness in his right arm. As he relaxed it, the world dissolved around him, the red grass and black trees became ghostly, and he thought he saw the aliens move away from him in discontinuous motions, disappearing and then reappearing before they faded completely from view, and he was suddenly standing again in front of the alien panel.
Needles of pain pricked his right arm; he swung it back and forth as he flexed his fingers. Next to him, Kirk was massaging his own arm, but Spock’s hand was still against the panel. He was as motionless as he had been when they first found him.
McCoy stepped toward Spock and clutched at his right arm; his muscles were still rigid. “Jim, he’s still there. He won’t let go.”
Kirk took the Vulcan by the shoulders. “Spock, come out!”
McCoy grabbed Spock’s right wrist tightly with one hand while holding his shoulder with the other. Kirk was pulling at Spock’s left shoulder and arm. The Vulcan’s body was stiff and unyielding, but they managed to drag him back from the panel on his feet. The Vulcan muscles under McCoy’s hand loosened, and the figure became unsteady. Then Spock shook himself and found his footing, flexed his right arm, and his familiar contemplative but distant expression returned to his face.
“Doctor McCoy,” Spock said, “there was no danger and no need to move me. I would have been with you and the captain in a few moments.”
“Spock,” McCoy growled, “this is no time to stop and smell the roses. Or the virtual vegetation. Or whatever the heck they call …”
“Doctor, I was merely attempting to ascertain …”
Kirk rolled his eyes. “Gentlemen, you are welcome to continue this discussion—aboard the Enterprise. For now, however, I suggest that we get the hell out of here while we can.”